The Prophecy of the Gems (16 page)

The audience booed him disdainfully.

The young hovalyn was staggering, seriously wounded in the leg. The unbearable odour of his own blood was choking him, strangling him, he was drowning in it, and his eyes rolled upwards with anger. Why were these Ghibduls so savagely eager to see him suffer? Determined to behave with dignity, he stayed on his feet while his left arm was lacerated by an unseen power. Murmurs of astonishment began to ripple through the crowd.

A fresh barrage of bodily pain was launched at the hovalyn, knocking him down, to shouts of disappointment from the audience.

The Nameless One immediately plucked up his courage and strength, however, and staggered to his feet once more. His eyes shone with such determination that the spectators were shaken.

When he felt an invisible dagger pierce his abdomen, the hovalyn did not flinch. After all, he
wasn’t risking anything, because Death was on strike. All he had to do was resist the attacks. But he was exhausted, and when agony surged through his body again, he had to lean against the glass wall surrounding the stage. With a last effort he tried to draw himself up, to shout a threat, something brave and dignified that would give him back a little of his pride — but everything was growing hazy around him: images, sounds, smells, all his perceptions were fading, vanishing, leaving only suffering.

Still he resisted, when all of a sudden the same voice from before resounded throughout the theatre: “The moment has come — it is time to choose.”

A thrill of excitement swept the public. The Nameless One made a superhuman effort to stay on his feet. Everything seemed so far away…

“Hovalyn!” continued the voice. “Kneel, renounce what you are, give up the fight. You can never vanquish us. If you submit, your torture will cease, you will be one of us. We know the identity you seek so desperately. We will reveal it to you. You will have a place among us. But if you defy us and refuse this offer, the pain will torment you to the point of
madness. And when Death ends her strike, we will kill you. So, do you admit defeat? Will you serve us?”

“Never,” gasped the Nameless One.

A new wave of pain flooded instantly through him.

A distant voice, solemn and harsh, but filled with admiration, then echoed through the theatre.

“It’s him… It’s him! Stop, it’s him!”

The Nameless One fell unconscious.

THE SUN HAD
barely risen when the three travellers all woke up. They ate a meagre breakfast; Amber tried a strange fruit that turned out to be delicious. No one spoke for they were still quite tired.

Opal was the first to see the two girls coming towards them. Their fresh, dainty faces seemed quite carefree, yet Amber could not help noticing their conceited, almost disdainful expressions. It was impossible to tell how old they were. They both had short brown hair, attractively tousled, but one had liquid brown eyes while the other’s eyes were periwinkle blue
– with a gleam of malice. They looked very much alike: small, narrow, slightly upturned noses; full lips set in an innocent pout. Their features and attitude suggested that the girls were charming and angelic, but they could not disguise a certain arrogance.

At first the two newcomers simply studied the three travellers in silence. Then the blue-eyed girl piped up, “Loorine! Do you think they’re humans? Real live humans?”

“Could be,” replied the other in a rather snooty tone. “What luck!”

“I’m definitely alive,” announced Jade dryly. “You might take that into account while talking about us.”

“You’re right, Mairénith,” said Loorine. “They are humans!”

“Thanks for noticing,” snarled Jade.

Amber and Opal examined the strange girls attentively, feeling more irritated than intrigued by the contempt in their voices.

“How happy I am!” cried Mairénith, batting her long, curving black eyelashes.

“We’re so pleased to meet you,” declared Loorine, with a smile that revealed her perfect white teeth.

“Aren’t you pretty!” said Mairénith merrily. “Don’t you agree, Loorine?”

“Yes, very pretty.”

“Thank you,” said Jade, “but would you please stop making fun of us?”

“Very pretty,” repeated Loorine. “We’ve never seen the like before, have we?”

“No,” said Mairénith. “Jade, tell me, do you find me pretty?”

“How do you know my name?”

“I just do. I’m a Nalyss, and nothing less. So, do you think we’re pretty?” she continued in a wheedling voice.

By now Jade, Amber and Opal were wondering just who these visitors could possibly be.

“Why do you ask?” said Amber.

“I really want to know,” replied Mairénith fretfully.

“Yes, you’re pretty,” said Jade in exasperation. “But you’re very strange and if I were you, I wouldn’t be so conceited.”

Amber and Opal smiled fleetingly to hear Jade mention her own greatest flaw.

“She thinks we’re pretty!” crowed Mairénith in delight, as if she hadn’t heard anything but that.

“Of course we are!” agreed Loorine.

A third girl then appeared. She was as lovely as the other two but did not resemble them, and it was easier to guess her age, which couldn’t have been more than fifteen. She seemed delicate but not frail, with exquisite features, a glowing complexion, bright red Hps, and silky hair that hung down to her slim waist. Her gaze seemed so pure and innocent that it was positively unsettling.

“Oh, Loorine!” groaned Mairénith.

“Such ugliness!” wailed her companion.

“I can’t bear it,” moaned Mairénith, on the verge of tears.

“Go away, quickly, you horrid creature!” shouted Loorine. “Leave us alone! Don’t come near these travellers!”

Then, as if appalled by such a repulsive vision, Mairénith and Loorine took to their heels.

“They are really something else,” said Amber, who would have burst out laughing if she hadn’t been so astonished.

“You said it!” agreed Jade.

“Anyway, why did they run off like that?” wondered Amber. “I thought they’d seen some
dreadful monster — what a racket they were making! Honestly, I just can’t figure it out at all.”

Jade merely shrugged, while the newcomer approached and said with a smile, “My name is Janëlle.”

“Delighted to hear it,” observed Jade sourly.

“The girls you just saw are Nalyss. They’re rather bizarre, aren’t they?”

Janëlle sat next to the three travellers and began to tell them about the Nalyss, who were not uncommon in Fairytale. They were always female and never lived beyond the age of thirty. Extremely narcissistic, they spent their entire lives in passionate adoration of their beauty, an obsession so all-consuming that they had to avoid seeing themselves in a mirror or on the surface of a lake, for fear that they would never be able to tear themselves away from their reflections.

Janëlle neglected to mention that not many people could actually see them. The Nalyss had a very unusual gift which even they did not fully appreciate: they could see a person’s inner beauty, and saw it even more clearly than simple physical attractiveness. Only people who were beautiful both on the inside and the
outside could see the Nalyss, and anyone else was repulsive to them.

The Nalyss spent their lives trying to meet as many people as possible who would confirm their own beauty. They were superficial and stupid and they amused themselves by captivating men they found worthy of their attention in order to drive them insane with love — and, occasionally, to have children, who were always born Nalyss.

At the end of their existence, very few of them realised that they had vainly pursued a meaningless ideal, that their beauty had brought them nothing, and that they had quite simply forgotten to live.

Her story told, Janëlle let a long silence fall.

“And you, who are you?” asked Jade, breaking the spell.

“I am Janëlle, and I guide people to their destination in return for food and a little pleasant company.”

“In that case, beat it,” said Jade, who had no idea why she was reacting so nastily.

“No, don’t go!” cried Amber indignantly. “Janëlle, could you take us to Oonagh? We don’t know anything at all about Fairytale and we’re a little lost.”

“Of course I’ll take you,” replied Janëlle, beaming with pleasure.

Saying nothing, Opal simply studied the smiling girl. She wasn’t happy about her arrival, but she felt no hostility towards her, either.

The party set out again, with Amber and Opal on one horse, Jade and Janëlle on the other.

It soon became clear that Janëlle was casting a pall on the three travellers’ spirits. Not daring to trust her, they kept quiet to avoid giving away anything important. And yet, Janëlle truly did seem inoffensive, so Amber decided to talk to her.

Janëlle quickly showed herself to be a nice, normal girl, and she explained to Amber that like her three new companions, she was fourteen years old. She was very poor, and instead of moping in her village she had preferred to explore Fairytale by becoming a guide.

“At your age?” marvelled Amber. “I didn’t know that such dire poverty could exist here!”

“Unfortunately, yes. Wherever there is life, there cannot always be happiness.”

Despite the furious looks Jade gave her, Amber responded to Janëlle’s friendly overtures by telling her
own story, from the beginning. She had just reached the part when she had first seen her Stone when Jade interrupted her angrily.

“Be quiet, Amber! You’re not supposed to talk about that!”

Amber’s sweet face clouded over instantly.

“Jade, it’s not for you to tell me what I must or must not do. I can decide for myself. If you can’t manage to trust anyone, that’s sad, but it’s your problem. Not mine. I respect your opinions, so don’t judge mine. You should mind your own business, Miss Princess, and let other people take care of themselves.”

Secretly stunned by her own words, Amber didn’t flinch at Jade’s wounded expression.

“It’s funny when you realise how wrong you can be,” said Jade in a cold, numb voice. “You take the risk of respecting someone, even though she might be an enemy, a real danger to you, but instead of heeding such warnings, you think you’re creating a fragile friendship, a mutual understanding. And then you’re forced to admit what you’d thought you could ignore: suddenly you discover an enemy where you would have sworn you had a friend.”

Startled by the unusually heated argument between her companions, Opal tried clumsily to bring the conversation back to safer ground.

“What happened while I was still unconscious? How come I didn’t die? And is Adrien all right? Where is he? I dreamt… that he was in a kind of uniform, and I had the feeling that he was going to leave.”

“That’s true,” said Amber. “I’d forgotten that you don’t know the latest developments.”

And although her voice still showed her irritation, Amber began to tell Opal about everything that she had missed.

Jade rode along without looking up. Although she didn’t want to admit it, she didn’t feel like her usual self. She was gradually growing used to Janëlle and was beginning, not to accept her presence, but simply to forget she was there.

The girls rode through several villages without incident. After Amber finished relating to Opal all that had happened during her coma, there was an awkward silence, which Janëlle tried unsuccessfully to dispel.

After a few hours, Amber’s exhausted horse sent her a weak telepathic message, asking her if he might rest.

“We have to stop,” she announced, and although they all agreed to halt there in the middle of a rugged plain, they could still feel a certain tension in the atmosphere.

“Do you think you’re special because you can read a horse’s thoughts?” asked Jade snidely.

“At least I don’t think I’m the centre of the universe,” Amber shot back.

“Stop it you two!” exclaimed Opal, growing more and more baffled. “Something weird is going on. Maybe we should use our Stones.”

“That’s right, you aren’t strong enough to take responsibility for yourself,” replied Amber. “You always have to ask for help.”

“So you think you can hurt me?” Opal asked Amber, stung. “Too bad, you’re wrong. I hope you aren’t going to start crying — because I know what a sensitive girl you are, so touchy-feely with everyone, and it would be so sad to see you all teary. Oh, sorry — how can I be saying such things to you, when you’re just so perfect? Of course, I wouldn’t dare mention that you’re just a poor, ignorant, sentimental peasant!”

Opal couldn’t believe she’d just spewed out those words — they had poured out of their own accord, harsh and uncontrollable. But now she wasn’t sorry that she’d said them, because blind hatred was starting to grow inside her.

The girls set out once more. Speaking soothingly, Janëlle tried to start a peaceful conversation, but it was hopeless: the other three lashed out at one another with increasing venom. Things deteriorated when Amber and Jade reined in their horses after two hours, saying it was time to rest again. They had hardly dismounted when they flew into a fury, slapping each other in the face. Opal joined in the brawl as well, giving a few vigorous thumps of her own.

At first Janëlle called out to them, but to no effect. Then she yelled her head off. It was a waste of time. She waded into the fray, receiving a flurry of vicious blows. Her slender body seemed to falter for a moment; then, with unexpected strength and determination, she separated the three girls.

With her jet-black hair in wild disorder, her clothes torn, Jade seemed beside herself, red-faced and menacing. A few drops of blood beaded a shallow cut
on her cheek. Opal had come out of it with only a few scratches and the look in her eyes was more inscrutable than ever. The pain of her wound had flared up again, and she kept her head down to hide her feelings. As for Amber, she was fighting back tears. Her bruised lower lip was split, and she tasted the hot, disagreeable bitterness of blood in her mouth.

They glared at one another.

The situation had become unbearable.

Somehow the girls managed to mount their horses and continue their journey, but the air was filled with palpable tension and bitterness as they struggled to hold their angry tongues.